A hollow man and an empty tent

How Tony Blair must regret building the Millennium Dome. The great, frayed tent by the Thames swallowed Peter Mandelson's cabinet career and now it threatens to finish off John Prescott's. The struggle to fund the dome and the struggle to find something, anything to put in it - be it faith zone or casino - has twice distilled ministerial dealings with businessmen into a toxic essence that has corroded the government's credibility. In both cases the sense has been of something well short of proper procedure, a starry-eyed adaptability in the presence of serious money that has become one of the most unattractive hallmarks of New Labour.

But such generalised and justified unease about the awkward interface between private profit and public good carries with it a responsibility to examine the facts. Not all between ministers and private business can be wrong: what matters is the terms on which it takes place. The case against Mr Prescott must rest on more than innuendo. It cannot be based only on suspicions about why he met the Dome's main developer, Philip Anschutz, seven times or chose to stay with him in Colorado last year (though that strange trip was certainly ill-judged). The immediate charge on which Mr Prescott must stand or fall is that he allowed himself to be lured into becoming a lobbyist on Mr Anschutz's behalf, pressing for a super casino (then expected to be one of many) to be built in east London. If true, Mr Prescott abused both his own position and the claim that the site of the new casinos would be chosen independently by an advisory board.

But this has not - so far - been proven, despite the squeals from Southend-on-Sea and the piles of departmental memos, which is why it is right that the parliamentary standards commissioner, Sir Philip Mawer, is investigating. No casino has been approved at the dome and there is no suggestion of personal enrichment. The trip to Colorado was cleared by Mr Prescott's permanent secretary. The redevelopment of the dome is government policy and it was Mr Blair's friend, Lord Falconer, not Mr Prescott, who did the deal with Mr Anschutz. The impression of an ageing minister of negligible influence swanning off on a jolly to play at cowboys as the guest of a tycoon whose friendship might be useful is demeaning, but neither corrupt nor seriously improper.

And yet. Can the wider political tide be held off for long? To what end is Mr Prescott enduring all of the probing and the gossiping, on blogs and podcasts, in print and on air? John Humphrys' questioning of his private life yesterday morning on the Today programme was humiliating, verging on improper: but Mr Prescott hardly bothered to hit back. A hollow figure, stripped of power, of perks and - though his own actions - of dignity, his significance dropped away before the Anschutz story. He has been preserved for reasons related to Labour's constitutional need for a deputy leader and the prime minister and the chancellor's private wish to avoid a contest to fill the role this summer. He may well be levered out, but if not he faces a tormented August as a nominal stand-in for Mr Blair.

Ministers should ask themselves why Mr Prescott's woes have blown up like this again. It is not just because the media senses weakness and because the left is dismayed to hear of his dealings, whether by the book or not, with a rightwing American Christian billionaire. Mr Prescott sums up all the decayed hopes that were once placed in New Labour, the expectation of vigour, reform and clean dealing. He will not be able to overcome this, and perhaps knows it. Hitting a man already on the ropes may appear unkind, but the ease with which he can be pummelled is a sign of how urgently Labour needs to start afresh. Mr Prescott should ask himself whether hanging on is helpful any longer. But in the end change will have run much more deeply than that.